The Temple of Nathulion

A Lexicon Campaign

"Children's Prophecy, The"

A foolishness that has spread like a schoolyard rumor, only this error has been perpetuated by schoolmasters who have sadly failed their duty. Only in extremis do I record this rhyme. Let this entry serve as a warning to those who believe that literacy and art are perfect gifts of grace and only the doggerel and scribblings of the dull and unlearned like “The Betrayed” can contain heresies.

The children’s dancing rhyme, “Three Sisters Will Die,” was first recorded in the Encyclopedia in PA 905 but is surely older since it is known throughout the Three Realms in only slightly altered forms. Like many such juvenile songs, especially those with a mimetic component, it is believed to have originated as an elven hyporchama from before the Time of Nathulion. That such scholarly attention has been devoted to child’s play should alarm the truly devout.

The rhyme is unremarkable:

In the blink of an eye
Three sisters will die

In the blink of an eye
Three sisters will die

“Oh, how high,” cries the first
Falling from the sky

“Bye Bye,” waves the second
By the earth swept away

“Oh woe is me!” the third one weeps
“We are no more!”
And takes her life from grief.

No more the three,
Now more for me!

Curses upon Nestapar of Tur’om, who claimed to have decoded a prophecy in this innocent verse after the events of the so-called Second Cataclysm in NA 152. His nefand calculus: as Endor was struck from the heavens (the First Cataclysm), and Keford consumed in a mighty earthquake, so approaches the “Third Cataclysm,” the fall of the third sister, the city of Bradnes, and the End of All, in a manner and time that scholarly fools eagerly debate.

From a scrap of history (the foundation of these three cities by Hesundost II), a dash of the obvious (the importance of these places), a dollop of elven mystery (like fire, in which anything can be seen), and wholesale astrological buffoonery (how else can anyone explain how plus 200 years and counting can be the blink of an eye), Nestapar’s fantasy of “The Children’s Prophecy” was born.

Must the Gods take numbers so they may punish the wickedness of mankind like housewives taking numbers for red grain rolls at a bakery? Three, four, five, six, seven cataclysms could come before the End of All. Let there be eight, nine, and ten more so the Gods may keep us on the righteous path. Counting and naming are the ruin of the highly educated who have less sense than children who fall and traipse while playing at counting and naming!